Cyrix Corp, now a part of National Semiconductor Corp, picked the day before Intel Corp’s launch of the low cost Celeron Pentium II last week to introduce its own new entry-level PC processor, the MII 300 (that’s pronounced em-two). Running at 300MHz rather than Celeron’s 266MHz, the chip was said to offer 25% higher performance than Celeron, scoring benchmarks in the same range as Intel’s 300MHz Pentium II. Cyrix was cashing in on the widely- held opinion that Intel too obviously hobbled the performance of the Celeron chip. By using the MII 300 instead, OEMs will have the option of adding more memory, larger hard drives, faster CD- ROMs and modems for the same price, it said. Cyrix says it has tuned its design and manufacturing processes in order to increase its yields of high-speed grades. IBM Corp and TSMC are supplementing National Semiconductors own manufacturing capabilities, so that Cyrix can met high demand. But while Intel managed to round up 40 manufacturers to support its Celeron launch on Wednesday (CI No 3,090), Cyrix only had one visible supporter, CyberMax Computer Inc, which claims to be one of the largest direct sellers of PCs in the US. Cyrix said it was working with a number of major OEMs and reseller customers on products based on the chip. The MXII 300 is priced at $180 in quantities of 1,000, actually somewhat higher than Intel’s price of $155 for the Celeron in the same quantities. It becomes available later this month, with volume shipments in May.
